Rewind Forward
by fallen-chan
Summary: Fall asleep, rewind the clock, and wake up to a world of black and white. Sasuke thinks, sometimes, that all his life is but a nightmare. •ℵ• character deaths •ℵ• AU


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything.

**A/N:** um. As with everything else I write, the run-on sentences really _are_ deliberate. _Really_.

**Summary:** Fall asleep, rewind the clock, and wake up to a world of black and white. Sasuke thinks, sometimes, that all his life is but a nightmare. •ℵ• character deaths •ℵ• AU

* * *

The cave is a tiny dirty thing, the walls slimy from moss and water, the ground coated in a fine layer of dirt. There are dead bodies piled outside, the makeshift team he led across half the world to their deaths in the mountains around Tetsu no Kuni. They are still warm enough that the snow melts as it settles on their corpses and he uses his hand to catch a mouthful of cold water. The taste of betrayal explodes in his mouth when he tastes the blood in the water and it leaves behind a sour aftertaste that makes it hard to swallow.

It should have been a moment of triumph for him. Find Danzo, hunt the man down like the damned creature he was, and kill him. It was a meager offering for what Konoha had put his clan, his _family_, through, but it would make a fitting start. His eyes burn and morph red, black tomoe spinning wildly when snow falls with a quiet '_thump_' and one of the bodies is covered in white.

_Karin_.

She is useless to him now, a cooling corpse with a burnt hole in her chest where her heart once beat. The body is still there, somewhere under the snow, but biting down on dead flesh will do nothing useful for him. He swallows a curse meant for her and watches the flickering of the fading fire, feeding on damp cloth and the remnants of whatever supplies he had scrounged from three carcasses. His heart beats slowly, blood sluggishly pumping out of his broken arm, where the Raikage's punch hit and snapped the bone, white shards peeking through the skin.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

Sasuke fancies that he can see Itachi's eyes in the flames and he wonders, half-aware at best, if perhaps he owes Itachi an apology now for spending so many years trying to kill a sibling corrupted by Konoha. Itachi reminds him of Madara and the remnants of his chakra spike and his fingers clutch his sole remaining kunai; he flings it toward the wall and it clatters to the ground, landing just beyond his reach. He tastes blood in the back of his mouth and coughs wetly and he snarls a curse meant for Madara, for the vaunted ancestor of the Uchiha clan who betrayed his own clan and did nothing to prevent its destruction at the hands of its own prodigy at the behest of a government that should have been _begging_ them for forgiveness.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

He falls asleep some time before the fire burns itself to death and his dreams are full of the screams of dying men and women, of malice manifest smashing into growing trees and a broken man slinking away from a waterfall. They blur by and he sees the _uchiwa_ emblazoned on walls and stone and clothing and spinning Mangekyo Sharingan decorate pale faces framed by black hair and he wants to scream and burst free of the dream and rip apart the smug faces of village elders, past and present, when he sees the subjugation of _his_ clan. He sees the boy who becomes his father and the girl who becomes his mother and he sees the birth of a squalling baby who becomes a professional killer and the _shinobi_-flies swatted away and ripped like paper by fangs and teeth and tails and his eyes burn and his breathes are choked as he walks incorporeal across the battlefield and counts the dead and dying Uchiha. He sees his own birth. The years go by and he tries to grab the toddler learning to walk and shake sense into the forlorn boy staring at a closed door and he zealously follows the silent killer whose face softens at the sight of a little boy playing with neon-coloured toys. He averts his eyes when blood drips from a familiar katana and he etches the looks of incomprehension and betrayal on frozen faces into his mind instead.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

They find him in the cave, slumped against the wall with spinning Sharingan, and drag him out past the decomposing bodies and restrain him, shoving a blood-replenishing pill down his throat. His judgment comes quickly – _death to the Uchiha, death to the traitor, the criminal [__danger to our power__] _- and they shove him into a damp cell beneath the ground to await his execution.

He is smiling, lips spread to bare teeth crusted with dried blood as chapped lips split open, when he is brought out under the sun again. His Sharingan still spin, even when his head is neatly detached from his body and the corpse is burned, the ashes scattered by the wind.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

Sasuke wakes up with a silent scream dying on his lips and he smiles in the dark of his room, eyes morphing into spinning Sharingan as he methodically gathers weapons from long-abandoned rooms and forms a collection of soldier pills.

He remembers where _Ne_ gathers, where Homura and Koharu meet on the weekends for tea and dango. The clock ticks and he smiles as he walks through the empty rooms, pausing by dark stains on the hardwood floor, until he reaches the door. The entire clan compound burns behind him and he smiles when the civilians panic, methodically slipping through dark alleys and unused buildings until he finds what he has been looking for.


End file.
